This present invention relates to a hydraulic buffering system, or energy absorbing system, using grooves to provide varying restriction flow of fluid.
Progressive buffers are known that have an outer cylinder and inner cylinder, with the inner cylinder attached to the center of the outer cylinder. The inner cylinder has a pattern of holes drilled from the top of the cylinder body to the bottom. As a piston head travels past the hole pattern fluid is forced though the holes. The fluid then travels between the inner and outer cylinder to an accumulation area on the backside of the piston. Transit of the piston decreases the number of holes which limits the rate that fluid can pass into the accumulator to create the buffer system.
Also known are cone-shaped single cylinder buffers having both the cylinder and the piston tapered. As the piston travels down the cylinder in these systems, fluid is forced around the outside diameter of the piston. The further the piston travels down the cylinder, the more the area around the piston head decreases, causing an increase in resistance to the movement of the piston. Minor changes in the diameter of the cylinder and the piston create large changes in amount of area in which the flow may pass from the front of the piston head to the accumulation area, causing problems of controlling tolerances in these systems and problems of maintaining slope locations.
There is a need for improved dampened hydraulic buffering systems. The present invention addresses this and other needs.